Musical instruments typically are learned through a combination of written instructions, audio, and visual examples. Written instruction may be typically provided by a book, pamphlet, blackboard, or electronic means, such as a computer. Audio and visual feedback may be provided in a variety of ways: from a human instructor in real-time, from recorded instruction, or from recorded music.
The learning process typically may be conducted in one of two approaches: (1) trial and error, whereby a student listens to a musical selection and attempts to emulate through various actions, perhaps arbitrary at first, until a satisfactory result occurs; or (2) note-by-note, whereby a student “reads” some form of musical notation provided either in a classical format or in “tablature” format and then must translate text to a physical operation on the instrument by blowing through a hole, pressing a key, fingering a fretboard, etc. Some modern, advanced instructional systems provide more direct instruction, for example, by lighting keys of a keyboard.
For example, a typical harmonica is shown in FIG. 1. The harmonica is a handheld instrument, preferably fabricated of a combination of wood, resinous plastic, metal, and/or other suitable material. The harmonica contains several sound holes 10-19 into which a player blows air or from which a player draws air to produce a number of different tones. One popular form of harmonica is a ten hole diatonic harmonica which provides two notes per hole, although there are numerous variations having different numbers of holes, and reeds per hole. The Richter-tuned harmonica, the most widely known type of harmonica, is tuned such that the blow notes comprise a tonic triad (e.g. C-E-G for a harmonica tuned to the key of C) and the draw notes provide a dominant (G major) chord. Because the standard diatonic harmonica only is designed to be played in a single key at a time, diatonic harmonicas are available in all keys.
Because of its relatively low cost and simplicity, amongst other reasons, the harmonica appeals to a wide variety of people, from young children to senior citizens, many (most) of which are not familiar with standard musical notation. Therefore, it is common to represent a musical selection for the harmonica using a more simplified means, known as tablature. Use of tablature dates back to the 1300's and has been developed for a wide variety of instruments, including the guitar, lute, harmonica, and others. It is characteristically designed to represent the physical layout of the instrument, such as the frets of a guitar or holes of a lute.
As an example, a common form of tablature for the harmonica, shown in FIG. 2A, is known as “B/D” and provides an alphanumeric series in which the numerals, e.g. 1, 2, 3 . . . 10, each representing their specific sound hole, are appended with the letter “B” or “D” to indicate whether a note is to he blown or drawn. This form has several limitations. It does not necessarily convey the tempo of the selection or duration of the individual notes. It furthermore cannot easily convey if a note is “bent” or overblown/overdrawn, although variations exist in which additional demarcations are added to the alphanumeric.
A further limitation of this tablature relates to the translation by a student from numeral and letter to physical position of the lips on the instrument and manner of drawing or blowing. In other words, there is an additional cognitive step involved to convert the number-letter pairing to physical motion of hands, lips, tongue, diaphragm, etc. It therefore is not intuitive.
A closely related tablature is shown in FIG. 2B, which involves the use of a combination of circled and un-circled numerals to indicate blow and draw notes, replacing “B” and “D” in the previous example. This form of tablature suffers the same limitations as described above.
Another common. form of tablature, shown in FIG. 2C, provides a series of numerals combined with arrows. An upward pointing arrow typically indicates a blown note, and a down arrow a note that is drawn. A curved or bent arrow indicates that a particular note is bent. Multiple arrowheads are used to indicate degree of bending (half, whole step, etc.) Various additional ad hoc demarcations are employed to indicate other maneuvers such as overblows, trills, etc. This means of tablature suffers most of the limitations of those previously described.
A further limitation of the aforementioned forms of tablature is that they do not necessarily indicate the note associated with the alphanumeric character. Consequently, it is not uncommon to juxtapose standard musical notation and harmonica tablature, as shown, for example, in FIG. 2D and FIG. 2E.
A yet further limitation of the aforementioned forms of tablature is that they do not provide any indication of the position of the hands, commonly used by harmonica musicians to modulate the tone, and/or to mute the sound, to achieve a musical effect commonly known as “hand cupping.”